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University of Chicago Law School

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The University of Chicago Law School
Established1902
School typePrivate
DeanMichael H. Schill
LocationChicago, Illinois, USA
Enrollment589 [1]
Faculty140[1]
USNWR ranking5[1]
Bar pass rate95.15%[1]
Websitehttp://www.law.uchicago.edu/
ABA profileThe University of Chicago Law School Profile

The University of Chicago Law School was founded in 1902 as the graduate school of law at the University of Chicago and is among the most highly ranked and selective law schools in the world. The US News & World Report currently ranks it fifth among US law schools, and it is noted for its influence on the economic analysis of law.[2]

History

University president William Rainey Harper requested assistance from the faculty of Harvard Law School in establishing a law school at Chicago, and Joseph Henry Beale, then a professor at Harvard, was given a two-year leave of absence to serve as the first Dean of the law school. During that time Beale hired many of the first members of the law school faculty and left the fledgling school "one of the best in the country."[3]

The Law School experienced a period of profound growth and expansion under the leadership of Dean Edward Hirsch Levi, AB 1932, (1945-1962). Levi later served as university Provost (1962-1968) and President (1968-1975), and then as United States Attorney General under Gerald Ford. During his time at the Law School, Levi brought world-renowned scholars to the faculty and supported the Committee on Social Thought graduate program.[4]

The Law School is well-known for its advancement of the application of social science to the law. A significant movement in jurisprudence began at the law school when Aaron Director initiated the first modern systemic investigation between the intersection of law and economics, an area in which the law school's faculty figure prominently.

Academics

As of 2008, the school's faculty had the second highest per capita article citation rate of American law schools.[5]

Degrees

The law school awards the degrees of J.D., LL.M., M.Comp.L., J.S.D, and D.Comp.L., as well as joint degrees with the Booth School of Business, the Harris School of Public Policy, and the Committee on International Relations.

Clinics

File:Kane Center.jpg
Kane Center for Clinical Legal Education

Second and third year students at the Law school have the opportunity to work in Chicago's four highly-regarded legal clinics: the Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, The Exoneration Project, the Immigrant Child Advocacy Project, and the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship. Several academic courses are linked to these programs.

Interdisciplinary Academic Programs

  • Legal History Program
  • The John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics
  • International and Comparative Law
  • Law & Philosophy

Policy Initiatives

  • Animal Law Policy Initiative
  • Climate Change Online
  • Foster Care to Adulthood

Research Centers

  • Center for Comparative Constitutionalism
  • Center for Law, Philosophy, and Human Values
  • Center for Studies in Criminal Justice
  • Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics

D'Angelo Law Library

The D'Angelo Law Library is part of the greater University of Chicago library system. Renovated in 2006, it features a spacious second-story reading room accessible by staircase made of steel, glass, and mahogany. Its upper floors are furnished with Modernist architect Eero Saarinen's Tulip and Womb chairs and Pedestal tables.

The Law Library is open 90 hours per week and employs the equivalent of 10 full-time librarians. It has study space for 483, a wireless network, and 26 networked computers available to students.

Admissions

Admission to The University of Chicago Law School is highly selective and enrolls approximately 200 new students each fall. According to its most recent ABA profile, Chicago received 5,403 applications and sent 982 offers. Its student population has a median GPA of 3.76 and a median LSAT of 171.

Grading

The University of Chicago Law School employs an exclusive grading system that places students on a scale of 155-186. The scale was 55-86 prior to 2003, but since then the school has utilized a prefix of "1" to eliminate confusion with the traditional 100 point grading scale. In a 21 June 2010 article in The New York Times, business writer Catherine Rampell criticized other schools' problems with grade inflation, but commended Chicago's system, saying "[Chicago] has managed to maintain the integrity of its grades."[6] These numerical grades convert to the more familiar alphabetical scale roughly as follows: 155-159 = F, 160-167 = D, 168-173 = C, 174-179 = B, 180-186 = A. For classes of more than 50 students, professors are encouraged to set the median grade at 177, with the number of grades above a 180 approximately equaling the number of grades below a 173. Professors, however, are entitled to set a lower median at their discretion.

A student graduates "with honors" if a final average of 179 is attained, "with high honors" if a final average of 180.5 is attained, and "with highest honors" if a final average of 182 is attained. The last of these achievements is rare; typically only one student every few years will attain the requisite 182 average. Additionally, the Law School awards two honors at graduation that are based on class rank. The top 10% are honored as "Order of the Coif" members, and the top 5% are honored as "Kirkland Scholars" (a designation created in 2006 by a $7 million donation from the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis).[7]

Placement

Chicago ranks second on the "Top 15 Schools From Which the Most 'Prestigious' Law Firms Hire New Lawyers"; second for "Faculty quality based on American Academy of Arts and Sciences Membership"; third for "Supreme Court Clerkship Placement"; and fifth for "Student Quality".[8] The Law School is also notable for having the third highest gross and third highest per capita placement of alumni as U.S. Supreme Court clerkships (16% for the years 2000-2008)[9], with approximately 15-25% of each graduating class going on to a state or federal clerkship. Private career prospects are equally bright for graduates as they routinely place into elite firms.[10]

Publications and Organizations

Journals

The Law School produces six professional journals, and three are student-run: The University of Chicago Law Review, The Chicago Journal of International Law, and The University of Chicago Legal Forum. Students interested in membership on any of these journals participate in a writing competition at the end of first year. The Law Review selects 19 students for membership based on first year GPA ("grade on"), and 10 students for the quality of their writing competition submission ("write on"). The other two journals select members on the basis of writing competition submissions alone (without regard to GPA). All three student-run journals allow second and third year students to "write on" by submitting a piece of legal scholarship worthy of publication.

The Supreme Court Review, published by the law school and overseen by faculty since the 1960s, remains the most cited legal journal internationally with respect to commentary on the nation's highest court. The faculty also oversees publication of the Journal of Law and Economics and the Journal of Legal Studies.

Academic Paper Series

The Law School produces several series of academic papers, including the Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers, the John M. Olin Program in Law & Economics Working Papers, and the Maurice and Muriel Fulton Lectures. It also produces a series of occasional papers.

Blogs

The Law School publishes several blogs, including the Law School Faculty Blog (the only institution-run blog named to the ABA Journal's Blawg 100), the well-known Becker-Posner Blog, Accolades and Achievements, the D'Angelo Law Library Blog, and the Electronic Projects Blog.

Organizations

The Law School is home to one of the three founding chapters of the Federalist Society. As a professor, Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia helped organize the Chicago chapter of the society.[11] Chicago is also home to a large chapter of the progressive American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.

Student Awards

Leadership awards: The Ann Watson Barber Award and the LL.M. Award for Integration and Inclusion. Awards for academic performance: The Joseph Henry Beale Prize (for first year students); The John M. Olin Prize; The Francis Bustin Prize and The Casper Platt Award.

Architecture

The Laird Bell Law School Quadrangle
Construction in Space in the Third and Fourth Dimension, or "The Pevsner," by Russian Constructivist artist Antoine Pevsner, 1959.

The law school was originally housed in Stuart Hall, a Gothic-style limestone building on the campus's main quadrangles. Needing more library and student space, the law school moved across the Midway Plaisance to its current, Eero Saarinen-designed building (next to what was then the headquarters of the American Bar Association) in October 1959. The building contains classrooms, the D'Angelo Law Library, faculty offices, and an auditorium and courtroom, arranged in a quadrangle around a fountain (mimicking the college Gothic architecture of the campus's main quadrangles). The year saw a number of celebrations of the law school's new home, including a filming of the Today Show (then hosted by Barbara Walters) and appearances by Chief Justice Earl Warren, Governor (and later Vice President) Nelson Rockefeller and Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld.[12]

In 1987, and over the objections of the Saarinen family, the building was expanded to add office and library space (and the library renamed in honor of alumni Dino D'Angelo). In 1998, a dedicated space for the law school's clinics, the Arthur Kane Center for Clinical Legal Education, as well as numerous additional classrooms, were constructed.[13] The library, classrooms, offices, and fountain received an acclaimed and award-winning renovation, completed in 2008, notable for the preservation of most of Saarinen's structure at a time when many modernist buildings face demolition.[14][15][16]

Faculty

Alumni

References

  1. ^ a b c d e The University of Chicago Law School Official ABA Data
  2. ^ U.S. News and World Report Law School Rankings
  3. ^ Williston, Samuel, "Ben Dover: A Biographical Sketch",56 Harvard Law Review No. 5, p. 687-8
  4. ^ http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/00/000307.levi.shtml
  5. ^ [1]
  6. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/business/22law.html?pagewanted=1&sq=law%20school&st=cse&scp=1
  7. ^ [2]
  8. ^ [3]
  9. ^ [4]
  10. ^ [5]
  11. ^ http://www.law.uchicago.edu/studentorgs/federalist
  12. ^ http://www.law.uchicago.edu/alumni/magazine/fall09/building
  13. ^ http://www.law.uchicago.edu/alumni/magazine/fall09/building
  14. ^ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122341764591312909.html
  15. ^ http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/theskyline/2008/07/polishing-a-saa.html
  16. ^ http://www.il-asla.org/awards_2009_president_3.html

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